Cochinchina Campaign

The Cochinchina Campaign was a part of the French conquest of Vietnam, in which the French and their Spanish allies captured Cochinchina in southern Vietnam from the Nguyen Dynasty via a naval expedition.

War
Known to the Vietnamese simply as Nam Ky (southern region), Cochinchina was invaded by the French emperor Napoleon III in 1858. The excuse was provided by the murder of French missionaries, but Napoleon was intent on building his empire and the region was strategically important for trade. French forces landed in the port of Tourane (present-day Da Nang), and from there marched on Saigon, which was taken a year later. Resistance against the invaders continued for another three years, but Vietnamese leaders had long been torn between adherence to strict Confucianism and modernization, and as a result the country was weak and lacking in modern equipment. The simple weapons of the Vietnamese proved no match for western arms and they had little choice but to surrender. In 1862, Emperor Tu Duc signed over Nam Ky to the French, who renamed it Cochinchina in 1867. By 1882 the French had control over the whole of Vietnam, which became, along with Laos and Cambodia, part of French Indochina.